


Wanting Words to Show It

by satonawall (forgetmequite)



Series: All the World's a Gift [2]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-10 04:10:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12903738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forgetmequite/pseuds/satonawall
Summary: I want you to be able to find comfort in me even when I’m not there.Alec decides to write Magnus a poem. It... could get off to a better start.





	Wanting Words to Show It

**Author's Note:**

> This is not really a second part in a series but just a sort of an Alec coda to the poetry gift in [All Love's Loving Parts](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12846345) because I had some mental images that would not leave me alone. Also I really wanted to properly include Izzy since she's mentioned a lot in the main fic but never got to make an actual appearance. (I probably accidentally messed up my timeline with the Alec & Izzy dynamic in this fic which is more like what they might have had during S2 than what they would have in the vague future of the main fic, but in my defence TV shows in glasshouses shouldn't throw rocks.)
> 
> This is also the first time I'm writing Alec's PoV and I'm not quite sure how it turned out, but at least I finally got to describe the multifaceted glory of Magnus Bane through someone else's eyes.
> 
> (The title is from Shakespeare's sonnet 26.)

Alec buried his face into Magnus’s shoulder, the steady breathing under his arm telling him that Magnus was already asleep. Normally, Alec would be too, a peaceful end to a lovely evening.

But tonight, his mind kept circling back to something Magnus had off-handedly said before they left the loft early in the evening.

“You could pen something yourself to add to my collection.”

Magnus had said it playfully, and Alec was sure he’d just meant it to distract Alec from insisting on seeing a Shakespeare poem Magnus most certainly did not have. But...

He could imagine it far too well, Magnus settling in the corner of his sofa after a bad day and summoning a box of sweet nothings to lift up his mood. (Magnus hadn’t said he did that, but Alec liked to think he knew him well enough by now.) He’d never seen the collection, but it was easy to see Magnus reaching for his favourite pieces, holding the pieces of paper (or parchment, or whatever the poems were written on) and finding comfort in them.

The very real Magnus in Alec’s arms shifted a little, and Alec shifted along with him, settling comfortably against Magnus’s side again. He looked at Magnus’s face, now relaxed at rest and always the best face Alec knew.

I want you to be able to find comfort in me even when I’m not there.

It was a decision even if it wasn’t an overt one, and having made it, his mind settled and finally allowed him to drift off to sleep, Magnus’s heartbeat steady just inches away from him.

 

Alec always felt better when he had a course of action he knew he was going to follow, but in this particular case his definite plans kept being sabotaged by reality. Namely, the fact that he needed two agendas and a calendar app just to successfully schedule regular meetings with Magnus, let alone some time all by himself. That wasn’t exactly a situation conducive to poetry.

Not that Alec would have the personal experience to know. It had been a week and he had yet to write any.

He was just lamenting that state of affairs over the finishing touches to his daily paperwork when Magnus’s text came through.

_Urgent surprise meeting in Johannesburg. Rain check on tonight?_

The initial disappointment lingered only for a short while after it sunk in that this meant he had a free evening, and most likely also a free night. Usually not ideal, but under the circumstances, he couldn’t think of anything better.

_Of course_ , he sent back. _Love you._

Magnus returned the sentiment with a series of different heart emojis, and Alec put his phone away with a smile on his face.

He didn’t have the personal experience to know if that was conducive to poetry, but he was about to find out.

 

Three hours and one minor Clary-induced catastrophe clean-up later, Alec was inclined to say it was not. He sent Clary to her room like a disobedient teenager (which she quite literally was) with instructions to write a full report on the incident, just to keep her out of trouble’s (and Alec’s) way. That done, he barricaded himself in his own room, pulled out a stack of paper and set to work.

_Magnus, you’re an amazing man  
Love you as much as I can_

Nope. Pathetic.

_You have eyes like a cat  
hey that’s also your best friend’s name_

Even _worse_.

He crumbled the paper, threw it in the trash and soon enough found that quarter of an hour had passed with nothing but a few hairs he’d accidentally pulled off his own head to show for it.

At this rate, any poem he’d manage to come up with would surely lift up Magnus’s spirits, namely by making him laugh because it was a complete and utter joke.

Half an hour later, Alec finally managed to stop daydreaming about Magnus’s beautiful laughter and once again met the empty, daunting page in front of him.

_I love you_

What made sense and also rhymed with ‘you’? Everything he could think of was either oddly conceited ( _You love me too_ ) or just concerning in how weird it was ( _You’ve never got the flu_ , for starters).

Fuck poetry, Alec decided. He would slay a dozen demons for Magnus without a thought, or fight the entire Clave, but this seemed to be beyond his capabilities.

He stared at the half-used paper some more, until the mental litany of curse words passed and his good sense returned. He’d promised he’d write Magnus a poem, and he would. It didn’t have to happen right now.

It was already well past midnight, and the Institute corridors were mostly empty. Alec walked on, with a vague idea of maybe going into the greenhouse or perhaps the hall to see if the place of their first kiss would spark his inspiration, but as he was passing the training rooms, the crack of a whip caught his attention and he changed his route, pushing the door open and entering quietly.

Izzy was standing at the back of the room, lashing with her whip at a target in what could have been precision practice but really, to Alec’s eye, looked like her concentration wasn’t really in it. She was sharp, of course, as always, but her hits came in far too quick a succession for her to be paying all that much attention to them.

“Iz, it’s almost one in the morning,” he said from a safe distance.

She startled, and Alec’s caution was rewarded when the whip missed the target for the first time and slipped from her hand onto the floor, but nowhere near Alec.

“I already went to bed,” she said, picking it up.

Alec followed her to a bench and sat down next to her, nudging her shoulder with his. “And?”

Izzy bit her lip, her gaze falling down on the whip in her hands. “It was just a stupid nightmare, okay?”

But she didn’t try to stop him as Alec pulled her into a hug, suddenly feeling like they were kids again when Izzy would actually climb into his bed after a bad dream. Some things changed, but not everything had to. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” she muttered as her arms wrapped around Alec as well. “Thanks.”

Alec hugged her tighter. “Anytime.”

They stayed like that for a moment, but eventually Izzy pulled away. The weapon in her hands became a pretty, harmless-looking bracelet again and she smiled as if nothing had ever upset her.

It was a mask, obviously, but Alec figured she had every right to wear one if she wanted.

“And what’s keeping you up, big brother?”

If it had been someone else, he’d have deflected it. But it was Izzy, and... They’d always been close, in ways you had to be when you regularly went to battle together, and there had never been a time when Alec wouldn’t have happily laid down his life for her, but. There had definitely been a time when she’d needed him in ways in which he’d not made himself available to her, and sometimes it felt like old wounds from that time still lingered, even if only in faint scars.

It had been a while now, but he still remembered how happy she’d looked to be asked for romantic advice, to hear about his feelings.

“I’m trying to write a poem for Magnus,” he said. “It’s going... poorly.”

He told her the whole story. By the end of it, Izzy was openly laughing at him, but that really beat trying to fight her feelings into submission so Alec gladly took it.

“I’m glad my agony is amusing for you,” he said with no heat in it.

“Always so dramatic, hermano.” Izzy bumped her knee against his. “I think you’re approaching the task from the wrong angle.”

“And what’s that, trying to actually put words to paper?”

“Well, kind of yes.” She smiled at him, open and happy. “Why are you writing a poem for him, really?”

Alec took a moment to properly think about it, returning to that moment of decision with Magnus’s warm weight against him, showing the vulnerability behind all his great power as he slept. Just thinking about it brought a smile to his face. He’d never believed he could be allowed to be so happy.

“I want him to have something to remind him about how much I love him if I di-“ His words got tangled in his head as he realised what he’d said. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been pondering the possibility of an eternity with Magnus, somewhere in his deepest thoughts, but those thoughts had never been said out loud, not even in a sideways way such as this. “I want to give him comfort even when I’m not there in person.”

Izzy was smiling at him, softly and a little wistfully, and Alec hoped suddenly, almost painfully, that someone would be staying up half the night to write poems for her. He wished she could know, too, what it felt like to be so completely happy.

“And do you think Magnus would find comfort in the perfect rhyme?”

He shook his head. Put like that, the answer was obvious. “No.”

“Mhm. If you want my opinion, forget about writing poetry. Just focus on what you want him to hear years from now when he returns to an empty home after a bad day.”

Alec’s heart clenched at just the thought of that, Magnus with weariness etched on his face, throwing off his coat and heading for his liquor cart, his eyes falling closed with tiredness that sleep couldn’t cure and Alec-

Alec available nowhere but in a yellowed paper he could only hope might offer Magnus some solace if he reached for it.

It _was_ heart-breakingly plausible.

His feelings must have showed on his face, if Izzy’s sympathetic look was anything to go by.

“Don’t think about the form,” she said. “Just be your blunt self, and then add a lot of line breaks.”

Alec nodded. “Thanks, I’ll try that.”

Izzy let out a small laugh. “You do that. I think I’ll give sleep another chance.”

She stood up, and Alec stood up with her, suddenly anxious to- He didn’t even know, put Izzy’s advice to use, in more ways than she’d intended.

For some reason, the people he cared for appreciated his blunt self. He should showcase that more often.

“Hey,” he said before she could leave the room, “I just wanted to- If you ever need to talk, about a nightmare or anything, I- I’ll always be there for you.”

Izzy blinked, just a little too surprised for Alec’s comfort, and without a warning, he found himself enveloped in a quick, tight hug that ended before he even properly registered it had begun.

“I know,” Izzy said as she pulled away, and yeah, she had definitely been right.

He would forget about poetry and just say what he meant, poetic or not.

 

The paper was yet again full of emptiness as he sat down at his desk, but this time, Alec refused to pay attention to that. He closed his eyes, summoned his vast collection of mental images about Magnus, and focused on how he felt.

Magnus when they first met, powerful and mysterious and so incredibly attractive, splitting Alec’s life into before and after with seemingly a single look.

And to think that Alec had ever thought that whatever paltry feelings he’d managed to muster up for anyone else before that were _love_.

Magnus, experienced and suave, quite literally shedding every glamour and letting Alec see him as he was, even though it was clear doing that very thing had cost him dearly with others in the past.

If he only had the words to tell Magnus that there had never been anything better for him, and would never be, than looking into Magnus’s eyes (whichever ones; they were both beautiful) and seeing the care and love Alec felt for him reflected right back.

Magnus, capable of shaking up heaven and hell and yet susceptible to the worst kind of self-doubt, that mix of seemingly untouchable might and painfully open vulnerability that Alec might never fully understand but would also never cease to adore.

He’d go to his grave (however long that would take) loving Magnus. That was not a question, and he would sourly remind anyone who dared to question it that shadowhunters only fell in love once. And even if they didn’t, who could even hope to compare, after Magnus?

Alec looked down at the words he’d made out.

_I thought I was in love before I met you. I wasn’t._  
_You’re the only one for me, and being loved by you is the best thing that has ever happened to me._  
_I’ll love you every day of my life._

He wasn’t completely satisfied with it, but it was a good start. Something solid to work on.

Thank heavens for Izzy. Now he just needed the copious amounts of line breaks.

 

“Missed you,” Magnus said the following day as he hovered over Alec, spread out on Magnus’s bed.

Alec would have teasingly pointed out that they’d only been apart for one day if he didn’t so keenly feel the same, Magnus’s necklaces tracing a line up his chest just as they’d done all that time ago when Alec had not yet had this.

Magnus would be the only person he’d ever want this with, Alec thought as Magnus leaned down, his goatee rubbing deliciously against Alec’s jaw as they kissed. His first, last and only.

At the time, his mind was far too preoccupied with getting his hands on every single inch of Magnus’s muscular back, but the phrase came back to him later and he made the edit gladly.

 

There wasn’t really a reason to embellish his first verse with a fourth line, but Jace happened to pass them by at the Hunter’s Moon a few days after that, and after watching him scoot past Magnus who continued to drink his martini and talk about a horse riding competition against Hua Mulan like he wasn’t blocking Jace’s way to the counter, Alec just felt like emphasising the lack of any possible comparisons.

 

The next day, he found Magnus asleep at his desk, work papers scattered around him and a quill sticking out from between Magnus’s head and the desk, probably leaving a spectacular impression on Magnus’s cheek. Alec felt his heart expand three sizes, fetched a blanket to drape over Magnus’s shoulders and decided that he’d edited enough.

 

He reserved ample time for actually copying his finished draft onto a fresh sheet of paper, acutely aware that it would likely be preserved in Magnus’s archives for all eternity. Alec worked steadily, with his neatest handwriting, but on the last line he faltered.

It felt wrong, somehow, to promise Magnus love for Alec’s lifetime. Insufficient.

When Magnus would read it centuries from now on, Alec might not be there, but he damn well wanted Magnus to know that his love still was.

Without hesitation, he changed the last pronoun, checked for mistakes and folded the paper, now ready to be given away.

He’d written the words to act as an eternal reminder, but as Alec slipped the paper into his pocket, he knew that if they only managed to get one smile out of Magnus, he’d be satisfied with their impact.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The final poem from ALLP, for your reading convenience:
> 
>  
> 
> _Magnus,_
> 
> _I thought I was in love_  
>  before I met you;  
> I wasn’t.  
> Never had been. 
> 
> _You’re my first, last and only,_  
>  And being loved by you is  
> the best thing  
> that has ever happened to me. 
> 
> _I’ll love you_  
>  every day  
> of  
> your life. 


End file.
